Opinion

Due to federal and state budget cuts, school boards are being forced to make tough decisions about which extracurricular activities will receive the greater portion of even smaller slices of the budgetary pie.

And it's unfortunate for school leaders to be put in the position of forcing the programs to seek alternate forms of funding.

Each year in June, the Central Kentucky News-Journal honors Taylor County men with a special section. The newspaper also asks for help from the community in choosing one man, in particular, who excels in his family, career, community and church.

Residents send in their nominations for Taylor County Man of the Year and then a committee of News-Journal staff members chooses a winner based on those nominations.

This year's honoree is Ben Martin.

The decision was a difficult one for the judges. There were more than 10 different men nominated.

Tim Davis has coached the Kentucky All Stars to a split - and nearly a sweep - in their annual basketball all-star series vs. Indiana.

Kentucky was in a tailspin, having lost eight straight and 18 of the last 20 before Davis guided them to a 95-78 blow-out win in Louisville on Sunday after dropping an 83-82 decision in Indianapolis the previous Friday.

Kentucky is famous for its county fairs. And now that it's back in full swing, the Taylor County Fair continues to get bigger and better.

This past Saturday marked the first events for this year's fair - the annual Taylor County Youth Horse Show and Tommie Johns Memorial Championship Horse Show. Tomorrow, fairgoers will start with dairy and goat shows, and Saturday features a beef show and - new this year - a corn hole tournament.

Back to the Future. That's not just a movie title anymore. Now, apparently, it's going to be our voting system.

As a story on last Thursday's front page explains, the County has approved the use of paper ballots for the November General Election. Federal money pays for voting machines, and counties can choose the system that works best for them.

Taylor Fiscal Court has approved the purchase of machines that will scan paper ballots - ballots a lot like those we used years ago.

What has turned out to be a really good day for kids has also turned out to be a really good marketing tool for Taylor County and Green River Lake.

Hundreds of kids (and with kids come parents) descended on Green River Lake on Saturday as the local chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation sponsored its 2008 Kids Outdoor Day.

It's almost an accomplishment of monumental proportions - coordinating activities on the waterfront, in the pavilion area at Green River Lake State Park and at Camp Kentahten. It was hot, but the kids didn't seem to mind.

Cancer touches all of us, plain and simple. If only it was as simple to cure it.

As the second leading cause of death in the U.S., cancer will affect all too many of us. We each have a risk - experts say half of all men and a third of all women will be diagnosed with some form of the disease.

As scary as those numbers are, each year it seems as if cancer researchers have some good news for us.

Has anybody been thinking what we've been thinking, that they'd like to have the Mayor and the City Council's help balancing our budgets?

In a time when making ends meet seems like the struggle of a lifetime, the City approved a budget that, among other things, includes a 5 percent pay increase for all full-time employees.

Before someone accuses us of eating "sour grapes" let it be known that the CKNJ Editorial Board holds no animosity for our fine City workers. We believe a financially strong municipality sends a good message to its constituents.

At Monday's ceremony honoring Taylor County war dead and those who have served and are still serving, the Junior ROTC from North Hardin High School performed a "Prisoner of War/Missing in Action/Missing Man" ceremony.

No other editorial comment is necessary but to allow you to read the script as read that day:

If one particular issue would split the opinion of voters in Campbellsville, we suspect alcohol might be it.

The lead-up to this year's primary was about as tame as it could possibly get. Even though we witnessed way more letters opposing alcohol than approving of it, we suspect that there were a number of people who never really let their feelings be known until they stepped behind the curtain on Tuesday and punched "yes" or "no" on the referendum question about the sale of alcoholic beverages in restaurants.

It takes a special kind of person to care for those who are sick or hurt. In addition to all the "learned knowledge," such as education and training, it also takes patience, kindness and genuine caring.

A majority of the health care professionals in our community are exactly that, and none of them more so than nurses and nurses' aides.

For all their expertise, doctors are often rushed to the point of checking on a patient, signing some orders and hurrying on to the next patient before heading to their offices.

Last year, the News-Journal published a story about the results of the latest Kentucky Incentives for Prevention survey of local students.

The survey results showed that prescription drug abuse is on the rise with teenagers. As a matter of fact, according to Karen Hayes with the Campbellsville/Taylor County Anti-Drug Coalition, one in every four teens uses prescription drugs to get high.

We all knew it. But now others are learning as well. Taylor County is a wonderful place in which to live and raise a family.

A story on today's front page tells about a family - a large, extended family - who moved to Taylor County from Las Vegas, Nev. last year. They did so because they visited the area and liked it. A family, passing through, gets the feeling that this is the place for them to live. Sounds like a made-for-TV movie script.

They thought it would be a better place in which to raise their growing family than in the frantic, big-city atmosphere of Las Vegas.

"But just as you excel in everything - in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in your love for us[a] - see that you also excel in this grace of giving."

-2 Corinthians 8:7

There are many worthy causes in the community, but it would seem logical that the issue of children not having enough to eat should rank near the top of the list.

If the Taylor County Food Pantry is just four weeks away from halting service due to a lack of funding, then it's obvious families in the community are going hungry - and it's going to do nothing but get worse.